The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Typical devices used in packet-switched networks, such as routers and switches, provide a character-based command interface that is accessible through Telnet, Secure Shell (SSH) and serial port interfaces for changing the device status or configuration. Each configuration command has an associated syntax. A Network Management Station (NMS) can use configuration commands to provide a higher level or enhanced management capability to the network operator. For example, an NMS can implement a high-level operation, receive user input requesting the operation, automatically translate the requested operation into a set of configuration commands, and deliver the commands to the device over Telnet.
To operate in this manner, the NMS requires knowledge of the device configuration commands and the syntax of the commands.
One way of performing device configuration is to issue one or more configuration commands manually. In a large network consisting various kinds of devices, issuing manual commands is cumbersome and error-prone, as it is difficult for humans to remember the syntax and semantics associated with all commands for each kind of device and for each type of configuration. Further, each device on each interface or task may require different configuration commands and the semantics for each may vary. In addition, even in similar types of devices such as routers or switches different vendors may adopt different standards making the task even more complex.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need for improved approaches for configuring network devices.